Marathon Pundit: NLRB overreach report, Senate pushback edition

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

NLRB overreach report, Senate pushback edition

Now it's the turn of the Senate to push back against the NLRB. And there might be a couple of Democratic defections--which is making Big Labor quite nervous.

From Politico:

Building on last week's House vote, Republicans are now targeting the National Labor Relations Board budget in the Senate, hoping to win over two Democrats and attach a rider barring the agency from pursuing any order threatening Boeing’s new non-union 787 production line in South Carolina.

Given the stakes and narrow 16-14 Democratic majority in the Senate Appropriations Committee, labor is clearly anxious and mounted a last push Tuesday evening to secure its support before the scheduled committee meeting Wednesday.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), a member of the panel, told POLITICO that he is now "leaning toward" the GOP amendment but had yet to make a firm commitment. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a second member and often a swing vote for Republicans, insisted he had no firm opinion on the issue. "It is a case of new impressions," Nelson said.

As drafted by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the amendment is clearly aimed at the Boeing case but written in such a generic fashion that it would impact the NLRB’s powers in other instances when employers are shown to have moved work from one facility to another to retaliate again workers for lawful union activities.

The Workforce Fairness Institute rips the radicalized NLRB and the president's continuation of the "political circus" in a new video.

We live in troubled times. From Red State: Is the US Department of Labor About To Develop Hit Lists of Individuals To Be Targeted By Unions?

Mitt Romney's campaign released a video about union goonery last week. A business owner calls Big Labor "school yard bullies."

Do you want to retire in luxury? Become a union big shot. From the Chicago Tribune:

All it took to give nearly two dozen labor leaders from Chicago a windfall worth millions was a few tweaks to a handful of sentences in the state's lengthy pension code.

The changes became law with no public debate among state legislators and, more importantly, no cost analysis.

Twenty years later, 23 retired union officials from Chicago stand to collect about $56 million from two ailing city pension funds thanks to the changes, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation found.

Because the law bases the city pensions on the labor leaders' union salaries, they are reaping retirement benefits that far outstrip the modest salaries they made as city employees. On average, their pensions are nearly three times higher than what the typical retired city worker receives.

Small business is pushing back in a big way. From the Sonoran Alliance:

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has filed a lawsuit challenging a punitive new rule issued two weeks ago by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The "Notice Posting Rule" requires private-sector employers to post a notice in their business informing employees of their right to unionize; failure to do so will constitute an independent "unfair labor practice" that subjects businesses to increased scrutiny, likelihood of investigation and an indefinite expansion of the statute of limitations for filing any other unfair labor practice charge.

Northern Arizona

"With this latest rule, the NLRB has gone too far, passing a mandate that vastly exceeds its authority—largely at the cost of the small-business community," said Karen Harned, executive director of NFIB's Small Business Legal Center. "In filing this lawsuit, we are joined by thousands of men and women around the nation who are standing up against the anti-business attitude that is reflected in actions of Washington's regulators. It is truly a wonder why the government continues to treat job creators as the bad guys."

Added Farrell Quinlan, Arizona state director for NFIB, "At best our members see this poster rule as unwelcome meddling by the NLRB and at worst, they see it as naked promotion of the unionization of their small businesses. It's unnecessary, needlessly provocative and will only serve to create division rather than cooperation between small-business owners and their employees.

"Sadly, the NLRB is no longer an honest broker whose unbiased deliberations serve to facilitate understanding and cooperation between small-business owners and their workers. Instead, it has sloughed off any pretense of objectivity and proudly struts its active bias in favor of Big Labor by promoting the most radical and job-suppressing items on the union bosses' agenda."